During the spring semester of 2002, while I was teaching my creative-writing class at Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn, a student finally shared and read aloud a poem that he had just written. And after he read, our jaws dropped with amazement, our eyes widened with shock, our brows curled with concern, our hearts stopped with empathy, and our bodies froze with fear.

I think as a society, if we were able to take the focus off the way a person died and focus on the manner in which they lived, the loving presence they held in our lives and the fact they continue on in another form, our mourning process would be kinder and gentler.

In sharing this with us, in claiming his own voice, he might have given another 16-year-old a reason to drop their handful of pills. But Mr. Leto chose to run, and it's less about what he said, and more about what he didn't say.

My youth was consumed by loneliness, feelings of not belonging, and thinking of ways to kill myself. I experienced many dark nights of the soul. And television saved me. Although I read a lot, I looked to TV for the noise to comfort me and make me feel less lonesome.

By spreading lies about the "homosexual lifestyle," and by teaching kids, and especially vulnerable LGBT youth, that there's something sick, wrong or unnatural about being gay, folks like Rep. Dave Agema increase the suicide risk that they then turn around and use to justify their anti-gay rants.

It has long troubled me when any population is marginalized and we don't benefit from their full, authentic participation and leadership in society. Recent advances in equal rights for our LGBT citizens are only a beginning.

It was about mocking Tyler for being gay. That is bias, and it's part of the hate we all grow up with in a society that hates gays. The crime Ravi committed should not be punished severely or with deportation, but any way you slice it, it was motivated by that bias we all share.

The Christian community must reach out more compassionately to gay and lesbian youths. Here is a prayer I composed for all who feel excluded, rejected, marginalized, shamed or made fun of, in any way or place, religious or otherwise.

The public's attention will no doubt focus on Wright's revelation about being gay. But beyond the burst of publicity about a celebrity coming out, her story of anguish and re-birth many well save lives.